This blog is one of those for people building or using a RepRap self-replicating rapid-prototyping machine to log their comments, experiences, and suggestions. The RepRap homepage is at http://reprap.org.

It isn't the same guy. Ed Allen who was at MIT at the time was the guy who did the slip-form robot study back in the early 1970's. He proposed running it with a converted "hot stick" bucket arm that you use to put linemen up to pole-mounted transformers.